Midnight Nude Confessions
by CuteMcBeauty
Summary: CS Oneshot / After making love alone at night, Emma finally finds it in her to come clean to Killian about her nightmarish visions and her fear of what's to come.


For the few blissful hours they had finally managed to get for themselves, Emma and Killian completely shut the world around them out. First times are always the sweetest. Killian was an experienced lover, knew the ways of a woman's body and the triggers that could set her off on a trip to the stars and back. Emma too, had had her share of anecdotes. But at that very moment, peacefully lying nude in bed, staring into each other's eyes and fingers barely touching, both of them felt like two young virgins that had only just tasted the delights of spiritual and carnal love for the very first time in their lives, for never before had either one of them loved so deeply, so intensely, so thoroughly.

Killian knew something was still concealed behind those walls of hers, and although it ached to learn she could still hide things from him, he also knew that no good ever came out of exerting pressure on Emma Swan; if anything, pushing her to speak the truth always seemed to have the opposite effect. She would shy away further, and he hated the idea of his love, now completely and entirely his in body and soul, to recoil from him. She, too, had always given him time and space to tell her his deepest, darkest secrets in his own time. So he simply lay there, staring into her green eyes, praying that soon she would find it in her to tell him what was happening to her.

When words were finally uttered, they were the very last he expected to hear.

"Killian…. I'm going to die."

It took him a few seconds to completely fathom the utterance that had just left his lover's lips. He slowly but surely scorned as the words sank in. It had to be a mistake. He must have heard wrong.

"C… come again?"

When the silence of the room yielded a loud gulp and the sound of caught breath in Emma's chest, he knew that now more than ever, he had to remain still; he had to let her do this her way, in her own time. Tears sprung to her eyes and she suddenly sat up, a loud sob that begged for unbridled release finally escaping her mouth with a loud exhale. He sat up behind her and simply placed a hand on her shoulder. "Emma?"

The woman he adored sniffed and heaved. "I… I know. It's unfair, it's so unfair…"

"What is unfair, love? What is going on? Please, tell me…" He caressed her bare back.

Emma inhaled sharply and tried to compose herself long enough to finally speak to her love about her visions, and the fateful prophecy they entailed.

"Since Hyde arrived, I… I have been having these visions. I am fighting someone, some… dark entity, apparently. Tall, cloaked… You, Henry and my parents are running to me and the villain knocks the sword from my hand. I try to use magic, but…. My hands… they won't stop shaking…"

"The tremors, the ones you attributed to stress…" He whispers.

"Yeah…" She grins sadly. "But… that's not all." She looks up into his eyes, tears once again welling her infinite green orbs. "I am defeated by this thing. The cloaked figure stabs me in the chest, piercing me through and through and kills me. And every time I have these visions, or even when I'm not, that's when my hand shakes."

Killian nods and caresses her shoulder. "You have been through a lot, Swan, I had similar nightmares before, a troubled past can…"

"No, you don't understand." She turned to him completely. "I…. I went to Hyde. I thought he would know something about it because this all started the moment t we that blimp crashed yesterday. I was sure he knew."

Killian huffed and shook his head. "That was risky, love."

"He told me to find a red bird and follow it. And I found it. Last night."

"At the woods, when you told me not so kindly to leave you alone?"

She gave him an apologetic grin. "Yeah." She whispered back. "I followed the bird and… it led me to a young girl, a girl with some kind of… magical cane." She swallowed. "She said she was an oracle, and that I'd be wise to believe what she had to say. She told me to look into the head of her cane and… and I saw it. The whole vision." He lip quivered. "She told me that this was a vision of my future. My fate. I can change the path, but I can't change the outcome or the day. The day I face that demon, will be the day I die. And you will be there to see it, you all will." She heaved and sobbed. "I AM going to die, Killian, I'm going to die soon."

The only breathing sounds in the room were those of Emma's wrecked sobs, and possibly his heart's rapid and intense pounding. Killian had all but stopped breathing. He thought of what he had just heard and the chill in his spine soon spread throughout his entire body, freezing him as her words sank in. His hand slid from her back to the air and then to his jaw, covering his mouth and scratching his stubble and he was unable to control the moisture in his eyes. It could not be…. Not her, not of all people, not this precious, incredible woman whom he had fought so hard to conquer, not the savior who had entered hell itself to save his ass, not the one who had helped him find a way out of centuries of darkness and shown him the light of true love, not his princess, not his love, not his Emma.

He needed to get his act together; foreseeing her own death was visibly a huge burden. But he refused to believe it, refused to acknowledge her life could so easily be snuffed out like this.

He was hard trying to formulate thought enough to say something when she turned to him; the glistening tears on her cheeks broke his heart even more, as she reached to touch his face. "I'm… sorry I held back, I'm sorry. I …. I hate shutting you out. I just thought that maybe, maybe I could find a way to fight this and not worry you without needing to. Not when you have made it so clear that I am your happy ending. I don't want to take that from you."

He finally found breath enough to exhale and shake his head. "So… you were planning to inform me of this, when, when I am holding you dying in my arms? When I attend your wake? When, Swan?"

"I'm sorry." She sobbed. "The thing is, I… I am not sure I can escape this… fate. And if that's how it's gonna be, I sure as hell do not intend to spend what could be the final days of my life sulking about it, or with my nose stuck in some book to find a way to delay the inevitable." She moved her hand from his face to the stump on his left arm. "Nor do I want you to. I wanted… I wanted to enjoy this… enjoy my life and my family and… enjoy you, what little we can have, for as long as we can have it, without the agony of imminent death looming over both our heads. That's why I didn't want to tell you." She swallowed a difficult lump and sighed, looking down to where her hand touched his maimed wrist.

Killian sighed and also looked down to the point where their bodies were touching. "So what changed your mind?"

"Archie…"

"The cricket?"

"When you had the darkness in you, Killian, you said some terrible things…"

He closed his eyes and huffed. "Emma…"

"No, wait, please let me say this, please let me talk before I change my mind!" she begged. "You said that I will always be an orphan, because I push people away in a desperate attempt to protect them. It's true. That's why it was so hurtful, because dark as you may have been, you were just saying it as it is. I do. I push people away, I revert to my old ways when I'm scared, because I don't want to make my problems anybody else's burden." She shook her head. "But after I visited Archie after we welcomed the new people to town, he… he asked me about the vision and… he kind of told me that I have no reason to be an orphan, because I am not. I never was. I was always loved. I was never alone. And…" she sobbed hard. "If I am to die, Killian, I want to die knowing that! I want to die loved and wanted, please, please don't let me die an orphan! Don't let me die alone! Please!"

His love was falling apart, panic and fear and sadness taking over her, her body now wrecked by sobbing. He knew how hard it was for her to come clean like this, even to him. And when he felt his own handless wrist shake, he saw just how bad the tremors in her hand were at that very moment. He reached out with his good hand and covered her shaking fingers, bringing them up to his lips for a desperate kiss, tears finally escaping his own eyes. He then pulled her to himself in a tight embrace. "Oh Swan…. Emma, my love, no, no you will not be alone, not now, not ever again. Shhh, there, love, settle… settle, Emma, Shhhh…" After a few seconds of holding her to himself, trying both to calm her and himself down, he managed to pull away enough to look into her eyes, placing hand and stump on the sides of her face and staring intently into her tear-filled eyes, his own unashamedly shedding saline dew drops of their own. "Now, listen to me, Emma, and listen to me very hard: I do not know what strength I have in me, but I know that said strength comes from you. And sure as my name is Killian Jones, I will NOT allow this prophecy to come to pass. "

She grinned. "Don't make promises you can't keep…"

"I will keep them, Swan." He smiled desperately. "I'm older than you care to know, love, and I can smell a rouse a mile away. I sense that… that this is one of Hyde's plots and that, whatever it is that happens that day, the outcome will not be quite as nefarious as you fear, love. Besides, you have already been to hell for me, what makes you think I would not do it for you? You were willing to split your heart to get me out of the underworld, and sure as I have a beating heart of my own, my love, if the worst comes to pass, I will not hesitate in splitting my own to have you back with me." He smiled a teary eyed grin. "But if you fear that this is your demise, if indeed the worst happens and we cannot stop this, Emma, rest assured… you are not and never will be alone, my love. You are not an orphan, you are my true love, you are a daughter and a mother and a princess, and very, very loved by more people than you care to count!" He kissed her face repeatedly as she sobbed in his arms. "My darling…. I love you more than you will ever know…"

"I'm so scared…"

"I know. I am too."

"I don't want to die, Killian."

"I know, love, I don't want that either, there… shh.." He pulled away from her. "Now, whether you like to or not, we HAVE to tell your family about this."

"No, no no, I…."

"Swan, you have to. I know it's hard, but trust that we can all find what is really happening together. We always do. We're a team. Your family are heroes and believe me, heroes always win. I mean, what are the odds! Look at me! I am living, breathing proof that that is a fact!" He laughed and caressed her arm with hand while he cleaned his own tears with his stump. "Look at how far we've come. But Emma, please, you HAVE to stop recoiling every time something's happening. Trust me. Trust us. We will always pull through. We will always find each other."

She chuckled. "God, you're sounding more and more like a Charming than a Jones now."

He shrugged and grinned. "Perhaps it's not such a bad thing. Although… please don't tell your father I said that…" He chuckled. He then l looked down and then back up into her eyes with a full smile. "Look." He tilted his head down to her hand, and she saw with relief that the tremors were gone. "See? I made you get rid of the demon once, when you were flooded in darkness, and you did the same for me. When will you learn that sharing our burdens is our new life? It's what we have chosen, Emma. And it is a sound choice, love. We can do this, Swan. Trust me. Trust US."

She sighed. Tears had stopped flowing and a sense of peace took over. She grinned at him. "Archie was right. I feel better already."

"Remind me to thank the cricket for knocking some sense into that stubborn head of yours, darling." He smiled, caressing her hair, and pulling her back down, where she placed her head on his chest. "Now, we'd sooner rest, Emma. We've a long day ahead of us tomorrow; since Belle is now homed in the Jolly Roger, I asked her for a favor. She is already looking into the story of the Savior for me and…"

"Wait… you… knew?" She looked up at him.

"Seriously Swan?"

"I really thought I had curbed your suspicions there…" She chuckled. "Guess I'm not a very good actress."

"Of course I knew something was up, Swan. You can be a good actress at times, but not with me." He grinned. "You are something of an open book to me love. Always have been. I knew you were keeping something from me, it was just a matter of time before you came clean." She looked ashamed and Killian kissed the crown of her head. "We read each other quite easily, Swan. I can't hide secrets from you any more than you can from me. You've always known when I'm keeping something from you and have always given me the time to decide when and how I want to disclose my secrets to you. I figured I owed you the same favor."

"Yeah…" She sighed, her fingers dallying with the hair on his chest. "That still doesn't make it right."

"Well, " His hand caressed her back. "… in that case, no more secrets then. Deal?"

"Ok. Deal."

They lay quietly for a few minutes, eyes wide open and just relishing in each other's company. Emma then moved and looked into his eyes. "I love you. I love you very much, Jones."

He grinned. "And I you, Emma Swan."

"I'm still scared."

"Of course you are. It's all right to be scared. It's quite a threat we have there." He sighed. "I won't lie to you, it scares me too. But let's not dwell on it and get paralyzed by fear. Let's enjoy the moments of quietude we do get and work to change that fate when the dawn comes. All right?"

She pressed her lips together and fiddled with his charms and chain. "Killian…"

"Aye love?"

Green eyes met with blue. "Make love to me again? Please?" She grinned. "Just want to make the best of… the moments of _quietude_."

A huge smile crossed his face. "Milady Swan, it would be my utmost pleasure." He kissed her deep.

She giggled into his lips. "Seriously, who talks like that?"

"Shh, don't mock me. Just let me take you." He gently rolled her over and positioned himself over her, kissing her neck, her face and chest, caressing breasts and hips, her hands on his back and chest, arousing each other, rediscovering their bodies, and through their very sacred union of the flesh, sealing a pact of eternal love that, if not in this life, would always endure in the next, and the one after that. True love would always find a way.


End file.
